Beast of Darkness
The '''Beast of Darkness '''is the manifestation of all the hatred, rage, desire for revenge against Griffith and the evil that dwells within Guts' soul. Appearance The Beast of Darkness possesses black fur, pointy ears and demonic, red, lightning-like eyes. After he is "tamed" by Schierke, several chains were shown tied around its body. However, the beast is shown to be able to break them, using its mouth that is full of sharp teeth, as its power and size grow with time and with every repeated use of the Berserker Armour. The Beast of Darkness has been mainly shown with its demonic left eye, corresponding to the damage that Guts had sustained to his right eye. Personality The Beast of Darkness is a personification of Guts' own dark side, born from the trauma of what he's experienced (the Eclipse ceremony and his life as the Black Swordsman after that). Casca was seriously traumatized by those events and we know the result. Guts was traumatized as well, and it manifested in that way. All in all it is not a separate entity, but rather the psychological manifestation of Guts' trauma. When Guts endured the traumatic and nightmarish events of the Eclipse, his mind was damaged severely. The stress of losing everything he cared about combined with Griffith's betrayal and his own guilt drove him to homicidal rage. The Beast of Darkness is formed from Guts' hate, rage and the evil in his soul; thus, it doesn't want Guts to leave these negative feelings behind and settle down. Since it feeds on the souls of the Apostles and the creatures Guts has killed to increase its and Guts' strength, it doesn't want Guts to stop killing them thus it wants him to keep killing eternally. It also tempts Guts to commit heinously evil acts, such as when it tells him to rape and kill Casca so they can go back to their hunt for vengeance. The Beast of Darkness has a great lust for battle and killing others, as shown when Guts felt guilty for killing the children while battling Rosine while the beast held no remorse over the incident. According to Guts, the Beast of Darkness's lust for battle is insatiable. This was best depicted after Guts gained the Berserker Armor whenever the beast smells or tastes blood it tries to free itself in order to join the battle. The best example is when Guts was fighting the Makara and some blood entered his mouth the beast began to push even harder than before, when Guts was fighting the Od of the Berserker Armour so that he didn't hurt his friends but the beast wanted to give in. Another example is when Guts was severely weakened while fighting the Sea God, until he called upon the beast, saying that he knows that it's skulking in the back of his head and subsequently calls it to help him by piercing his flesh and bone to give him awakening agony. This made Guts feel a substantial amount of killing intent surge through his body, which strengthened him enough to kill the Sea God. The Beast of Darkness is portrayed to be quite delighted by Guts asking him for help. The Beast of Darkness is shown to consider Guts' friends, the people that Guts feel he must protect and the warm light that comes from being with others, as frail. Also, the beast is shown to despise both Casca, who made Guts leave his quest for vengeance in order to focus on protecting her, making the beast wish to remove her in order to make Guts return to his quest for vengeance, and Schierke as she is the only one who can break its hold on Guts when he uses the Berserker Armour and for taming him, calling her the sly witch, but he states that this is only a matter of time as the repeated use of the Berserker Armour only makes him grow stronger. The beast seems to be impatiently crafty as well, as once he told Guts that he would start to obey him and breathe lightly to store his power, but the moment Guts uses the power of the Armour, the beast tried to take control. The Beast, while disliking Guts settling with others, tells him to cherish them so that he suffers their loss when something happens to them. Just like Guts and possibly even more, the Beast of Darkness hates Griffith and wants Guts to forget about his friends and go race with hate, ecstasy and a thirst for vengeance to kill him. He also calls Griffith the true light that burns him. After seeing that Guts will not give in to him and return to his vengeance, he promises that when Guts' friends are dead and there is nothing standing between them, he will swallow Guts whole and return to the hunt for vengeance. History Conviction Arc The path Guts took shortly after being rescued by the Skull Knight, the path of revenge and bloodshed, was the reason the beast grew in power. As the Black Swordsman, he and the beast were in perfect harmony. However, guilt mixed with anger during the struggle against Rosine's Apostle Spawns left a trail of massacred human children as they returned to human form once they had been killed, marking the beast's first appearance through the manifestations of ghosts. When Guts received a vision about Casca being burned from their demonic child he returned to Godo's place to find out that she was gone. While Godo mine served to protect Guts from evil spirits, as it was originally an elf home, it the beast was nonetheless able to manifest and mock Guts before vanishing. Millennium Falcon Arc However, his longing for a civilized life with Casca and a peaceful place he could call home was considered the direct reason for a shift from one entity to a man and an inner beast. As it tries to convince Guts to give in to his evil desires, it taunts him, questioning the morality of his quest for revenge and urging him to commit ever-greater atrocities, most notably attempting to convince him to rape Casca. After confronting Slan in the Qliphoth, Guts was wounded in both his physical body and his ethereal body. As the Berserker Armour intensifies violent emotion in order to make the user forget about their pain, it works as a catalyst for the beast of darkness manifestation. When Guts used it, the ethereal wound caused the demon to flow into the armor and affect the armor to such an extent to change its form. Because of Schierke's help, Guts regained control and was able chain his inner beast once again. The beast continually urges Guts to give in to his dark desires to kill Casca, and return to his hunt for vengeance without concern for anything else. Gallery Trivia *Similar to the Idea of Evil that was born from the human's need and desire for a reason for their suffering, The Beast of Darkness was born from Guts' hate, rage, evil and desire for vengeance. *While not seen in the early story arc, his presence is felt whenever Guts fights an Apostle and goes berserk. *When the ghost talks to Guts about the beast, they state that the more it thirsts, the more he kills, and the more he kills the stronger the thirst. Guts himself seems to know that the beast has a never ending lust for killing and fighting. *The Beast of Darkness is popularly but mistakenly referred to as "Hellhound". *The Beast of Darkness is referenced in the video game Bloodborne via a boss called the Watchdog of the Old Lords. It most resembles The Beast of Darkness when it was consumed in flames within Guts's mind. References Hellhound Category:Male Category:Antagonists